Cubicle Cultures
Meet the new boss, not quite the same as the old boss
Well, the hammer should drop tomorrow during an all-hands meeting that managers will be rotating out of their current positions to other teams. Meaning that my manager will be assigned to a different team and we’ll get a new one.
This happens once in a while to shake things up and give managers a different flavor for what each team does. I’m not a fan. My current manager is even-handed, kind, has our backs, and pretty much hands off unless we need her to step in. Just the type of management style my team appreciates and, as the team Lead, exactly what I need a manager to do. We already know who the new person is: has a bit of the same traits but, according to his team, completely ignores them. In all fairness, he’s in northern Virginia (NOVA) and his team is in Florida but that shouldn’t matter. What we used to experience was everyone is in the same space, today is much different. That team is self sufficient but they lack good leadership. This is why I’m worried. I need to be 100% confident that he has our backs. Did I mention he’s probably 15 years younger than me? Yes, that’s a sticking point, keep reading.
There’s a great book called Managing Your Manager by Gonzague Dufour that I keep on the shelf in my cube. The best description of the innards is: “Placing manager “types” into real-world categories — from the Bully, Scientist, and Star to the Geek, Parent, and Con Artist — it provides everything you need to make your work life more satisfying and productive.” (NOTE: I lifted this from the Amazon page…sue me) It’s all true and I’ve read it multiple times. I’ve yet to see what category he falls in but it damn well not better me the con artist.
I’m sick of training my managers. Being on my current team for close to 7 years, we’ve had 5 (6 counting the new one) managers all relying on me to teach them what my team is responsible for. I also feel the same about project managers but won’t go into it here. I just don’t want to train another manager…period. My current manager has 30 years of experience with the company including several in I.T. with our quality assurance group, so she has a technical background. New guy…no technical anything and came from HR a year or two ago. How the hell am I going to be able to explain, even in layman’s terms, what we do? I can talk in both geek-speak and business-speak so I’m hoping to find common ground. Time will tell.
This guy is in NOVA and accessible. Once in a while he visits from headquarters and either sits in the cube beside me or in my manager’s office when she’s visiting another site.
I really have a problem working for someone younger than me. Give him kudos for moving up the food chain at a young age, he must be doing something right or simply kissing the right asses. I’ve not been able to move into other positions such as management and that may present a problem. I don’t play office politics and that’s my biggest problem.
By already leading a team, I’m a pseudo-manager without the title and cash. As long as he doesn’t try to change what’s already an efficient, knowledgeable, experienced, entrenched in our ways team then I’ll be good with that. If he comes in expecting to change things to suit his needs, then there will be a major problem. Not just from me but he’ll have several pissed off 48+ year old people to deal with. My guys give me a pretty hard time already, 90% of it is ribbing to get under my skin but they’ll verbally pound that boy into submission if necessary. I certainly won’t encourage that but I can’t totally mitigate it. I guess that’s where my pseudo-management status will be handy as a referee for a potential MMA fight.
The new guy is just unprepared to handle it so I guess I’ll train him to be prepared and become an asset to the team. 6th time’s the charm I guess.
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